


Probably Not Dying

by Absolutely_Barbaric



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness/injury, Original Characters (not mine) - Freeform, Requests, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 01:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Absolutely_Barbaric/pseuds/Absolutely_Barbaric
Summary: A fic request for derberner and their OCs Alek and Jean. I just wanna hug both of them until they pop ;u;Jean has no qualms about throwing himself into the line of fire for Alek. Sometimes its his own fault for needing to in the first place, but...one day they'll get it right.





	Probably Not Dying

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you derberner for requesting this fic and sharing your wonderful OCs with me, they're the sweetest pair I've ever encountered and I have so many memes about them already.

“ _Stay low._ ”

 

It was an order that should have been easy to follow. Stay low, don’t make a sound, or reap the consequences of a gruesome death from which no one could reassemble your remains for the funeral. Jean had said all of this verbatim, but perhaps it was his fault for not predicting that 15 minutes was too long for Alek to do either of those things.

 

For monster hunting, their conditions were about as inconvenient as they could get. Very rarely were they ever not. At the darkest hour of the darkest night this town had ever seen, full moon or not, getting so much as a steady visual became more of a task than they’d bargained for, and while they were fortunate enough to catch this werewolf wandering solo, there was the small but pressing matter of whether or not they could handle an alpha here. With a measly three silver bullets crammed into a crappy pistol that might jam or might not, and the fact that they’d only stumbled into this situation rather than approaching with a plan, Jean was as poised to call it quits as his finger was over his trigger. Missing this opportunity would cost lives and good money. Failing it would cost his own. And if he was reckless enough, both of theirs.

 

“Maybe we can trap it here,” Alek whispered, nervously thumbing over a patch of bark from the oak they stood behind. His suggestion was met with a glance torn between ‘be quiet’ and ‘go on’. “If we just knock it out and then come back for it later…?”

 

Jean would have thumped his forehead against the wood, if not for a need to be silent. The idea was nonsense. Even if he could lug this giant tree out from the ground and hurl it  _with accuracy_  at the thing’s head, it wasn’t going to stay knocked out for long. Its pack would come back for it in that amount of time. That being said, he couldn’t really educate Alek on all of these matters right now if the next word or always helpful suggestion might get them eaten.

 

“No,” he whispered back, fingers firmly dug into the younger’s shoulder. If he gripped him any harder, the yelp of pain that would come from it might be counter productive. He tried to steady himself. “We’ll think of something. Keep quiet.”

 

Minute seventeen passed. Alek shifted and said under his breath, “We’re going to be here forever.”

 

 

This wasn’t the time to complain. It wasn’t the time to argue either, but Jean couldn’t help himself from shooting back as quietly as possible, “Keep talking and you’re not gonna be here much longer.”

 

“Aren’t three bullets enough…? I know it’s an alpha, but…”

 

“Alek, quiet.”

 

“…But it could really hurt someone if we let it go.”

 

“Alek,  _please…_ ”

 

“Shouldn’t we-”

 

“For fuck’s sake!”

 

So much for the element of surprise.

 

The wolf’s prowling halted in place, its head whipped in their direction and greeting their stone figures with an aggressive snarl. There was no time to think or plan or say anything more- Jean had shoved Alek away so hard he almost stopped in his tracks to apologize, but there was no time for that either. His gun was no longer the extension of his hand that it used to be but a clunky tool he felt unaccustomed to, the first bullet going absolutely nowhere if it fired at all, he couldn’t hear anything with adrenaline thundering in his ears.

 

Before he knew it, inches away from him stood a creature twice his size, with teeth twice his size more like, and Jean thought his knees would buckle if the second bullet hadn’t gone off successfully. With the werewolf recoiling, he took that time to turn his head and search for Alek, horror knotting his stomach into something he thought he’d choke on when he couldn’t find him anywhere. All he could do in that moment was pray that he’d run away, and not charge in after him like some kind of buffoon. Though, he’d have to have more than God on his side for Alek to be that wise.

 

_“Jean!”_

 

Found him. Despite the relief that washed over him for a fleeting second, it was a little too late to celebrate that Alek had the sense to keep a safe distance. By the time he looked back, his chest to his neck were met with the brutal swipe of claws, heaving him into the dirt with an agonized holler. He was alright. He had to be. He had to be alright enough to fire this last bullet that he knew spared him little chance; unless he managed heart or head, he was done for. If only he could keep his eyes open through the pain that suddenly burned within his open wounds.

 

“H- Hey! Over here! Look over here, you…”

 

With great effort, Jean lifted his head in the timid voice’s direction. It was of course Alek, who had gone even more pale if at all possible, though not any more pale than Jean once his upper body was relieved of the wolf’s crushing weight on top of him. The uncertainty in Alek’s eyes and the reflection of a stalking beast in them set off bursts of even more defeaning adrenaline in his head, screaming at him to go against the odds and sit up, a task that would have more difficult if he didn’t feel like he was going to hurl anyways. He had one shot, just this one last, final shot…

 

He would have it, if his gun wasn’t out of reach.

 

Knocked far from him in the fall, Jean knew he would never get to it in time. He could hardly keep himself up in the first place, much less move. But with the werewolf drawing closer, and with Alek appearing to have no capability of moving a muscle in his fright, options were limited. In a great deal of agony, he more slumped onto his side than leaned and pulled himself through the dirt by fingernails, as though he were climbing upwards rather than horizontal, then shut his eyes once more and forced himself not to look in Alek’s direction again. There was no time. All he could do was push and pull along, reaching his arm out so desperately for the pistol so close yet so far, teasing him by slipping between his sweat drenched fingertips.

 

Alek let out a terrified cry. He forced his arm forward beyond its limit, and ignored the screaming of his shoulder to take hold of the gun and shoot.

 

For the circumstance, he did a pretty good job. Not as clean a shot as he would have liked it, but he couldn’t ask for much. When he saw past the dizziness, he noticed that there wasn’t much distance between Alek, the werewolf and himself in the first place, while the real conflict lay in whether or not he could keep his hand steady enough to just not drop his gun in the first place. He could. The bullet went off- another, too, he supposed from the first time or he was just wrong about how many he had loaded. It lodged itself deep enough through the wolf’s back, making for a not very tidy but swift death that he had to remind himself was the cause of the mess splattered onto Alek’s cheek, and not because he’d been wounded.

 

He couldn’t keep himself sat up long enough to look at Alek for confirmation. His back hit the ground and somewhere along the way his name was hollered, or maybe some other word, he couldn’t really make it out right now. It was just nice, the dirt. It felt cool, a refreshing counter to the stinging of the torn flesh between his neck and his chest. But he knew that his injuries went beyond that, and it might not have been a good thing that he couldn’t feel it.

 

“ _Jean,_ ” Alek was beside him all of a sudden, his hands lifted yet uncertain of what to do, where to reach out to. Whether or not he could even  _touch_  him in this state. Jean opened his eyes, then closed them again, conserving his energy to think about how they were going to get home. He’d promised to make hot chocolate tonight. It would be the first time Alek ever tried it, and he wasn’t very good at cooking or baking or whatever, but he was going to add marshmallows, and…

 

“…me? _Jean!”_

He was so loud. Jean wanted to say that that was what got them into this mess, but it was his outburst, not Alek’s. His eyes opened again, and he looked over to the knelt figure beside him, taking notice that now he was holding his hand.

 

“S’okay…” he strained to get out. “Just my neck.”

 

He was weary, hardly coherent. Trembling, Alek set his palm against the torn open line, about to breathe a sigh of relief when the fabric around his knees started dampening with unusual warmth. Even if he couldn’t see it, he could sense it; Jean was bleeding heavily, and not just from his neck. It was from his stomach, gashed open and staining the smushed grass beneath him. Alek cried out in horror again, to which Jean felt a fainter adrenaline stirring himself awake just to reassure him he was fine. He probably was, anyway. If he couldn’t feel it, then at least he felt fine.

 

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” he slurred, “I can’t feel a thing.” Maybe that wasn’t the most comforting thing to admit.

 

“It’s awful…” Alek choked out, pressing his own hand against his mouth. His cheek was smeared from whose blood Jean didn’t even know anymore. As long as it wasn’t his own, that was fine. He himself was accustomed to bleeding in battle. Just…maybe not this badly. “What do I- What do I do? I don’t know how to help, Jean, I-”

 

“Take your shirt,” Jean forced himself to get all the words out clearly, “Press it there, hard.”  _And don’t make it weird,_  he would have joked if not for each word to be more agonizing than the next. His jokes usually fell flat anyway.

 

For once today Alek managed to do as he was told and pulled off his shirt, jumping back as soon as he heard the strangled groan that tore its way out of Jean’s throat at the slightest pressure. He was hesitant, but the sight of blood seeping through gradually became a distraction, one that Jean was relieved he found because he couldn’t keep his voice down when it hurt this bad and Alek wasn’t the type to understand that sometimes you needed to hurt someone to make them better.

 

“You might as well-” he mentioned suddenly, breathing sharp through his teeth. The pain had him seeing stars. “The blood…”

 

It was impossible to fight against. There was so much of it, and Alek’s skin was flushing all over from the very scent.

 

“If you lose too much, you’ll die-”

 

“I won’t die,” He wasn’t so sure about that, but why quit bluffing now? “It’ll help the bleeding stop, just-” He made a stiff “do it” gesture towards his waist, unable to speak another word. If all else failed, at least it would numb him for a bit.

 

Alek couldn’t hold on for any more convincing. After undoing the lower buttons as delicately as possible, he knelt lower and shivered once the taste flooded his mouth, yet again ready to wrench back at any sound of pain. But that sound never came; Jean was too out of it to begin with, but the numbness that spread within seconds was more of a relief to him than anything. A little more at ease, Alek continued his tense drinking with a wary glance towards the hunter every now and then.

 

His blood was crudely metallic. Alek could only observe that from the back of his mind, more primarily worried about the injuries Jean had suffered and whether or not he really meant that he’d be fine. He said he was fine when he had a cold and almost developed pneumonia. He said he was fine when they were last drinking together and then he passed out on the floor. No matter how he looked at it, believing Jean on matters of his wellness was a little difficult.

 

Alek was satiated enough to finally pull away after a full minute, and after it dawned on him that Jean wasn’t even moving anymore.

 

It couldn’t be. It  _couldn’t_  be. Was he…?

 

“Jean, wake up,” Alek whispered, his voice shuddering at the mere thought that he was really…That Jean was really…”Wake up,  _please,_ you can’t….N-Not like this…”

 

Jean’s eyebrows pinched together in annoyance.

 

“I’m not _dead,_  you idiot. I’m just resting.”

 

“ _Oh._ ”

 

Alek sat back on his heels, relieved but feeling a little silly. This wasn’t the first time he mistook Jean for being dead. “Are you…going to be okay?”

 

“It was a hell of a blow,” Jean muttered. “…I’ll live. Just gotta figure out a way to get back home-”

 

“I can carry you,” Alek offered. He looked far too eager to get away from here, not that anyone could blame him.

 

Jean wanted to laugh, but the guy was half vampire. Even after having all the blood sucked out of him, looking at that young face he just kind of forgot that he could lift a few times his own weight. And it wasn’t like he had any bright ideas himself.

 

“Well, give it a go.” As much as he wanted to just lay here for a while, it wasn’t outside the realm of his bad luck for another monster to stumble across them and attack. Grimacing at the discomfort of being scooped up, Jean tossed an arm over Alek’s shoulder for his own support and tried to ignore the fact that he was being carried by someone half his age, unforgettable as it may be. At this point, in all his months with Alek, this wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened. This wasn’t the weirdest thing that  _could_  happen. “You better not drop me. I really will die.”

 

“W-What?” Alek fumbled him, and he nearly clawed into the back of his neck to keep himself up.

 

“I was  _kidding._  I’m not gonna die, kid.” He was just going to suffer for the next few weeks, unless he could afford any sort of remedy. Which he couldn’t. “Just…gonna have a new scar, that’s all.”

 

A few moments of uncertain walking had passed before Alek piped up, hesitantly, “I wish you didn’t have to have any.”

 

Jean blinked. It was the type of kindness only Alek was this blunt about showing, and it really did make him laugh this time, as much as it hurt. Just hearing something like that from anybody was so bizarre, it just…It just reminded him how much one person could care about another, something he felt like he’d forgotten before they met not too long ago. And yet that unawareness felt so distant, like he could hardly recall a time where he wasn’t looking after Alek. It made him wonder.

 

“Yeah,” Jean said a while after, “…Yeah, me too.”


End file.
